Moderation, in the Buddhist sense, is the imperative to always seek for the middle path. Put another way, it commands to avoid excesses.

Used as the norm of an economic policy, moderation has proven to be effective in Thailand were King Bhumibol Adulyadei has institutionalized “sufficiency economy” as the middle path approach to human development, poverty reduction and conserving the environment in the country.

In this context, moderation makes economic policy a moral issue. I find this problematic because moral incentives are not effective incentive mechanisms for development.

In the case of the Philippines where about 90% of the Filipinos are Christians who regularly receive sermons that greed is evil, the moral incentive to do good and avoid evil has obviously failed because the country has been consistently one of the most corrupt in the world at the cost of its development drive.

While Buddhism’s success as a moral incentive can be attributed to its orientation as a personal commitment to perfection, Christianity’s failure could be its propensity to condone imperfection as implied by forgiveness and mercy as recognized virtues.

Instead of moderating greed through ineffective moral incentives, since human beings are by nature self- interested, put bluntly, human beings are greedy, the practical policy response would be to decide on whether to regulate or deregulate greed.

Regulation is premised on the idea that greed is evil. Thus, it requires a strong interventionist state to punish the greedy using coercive laws and repressive taxes as apparatuses of its police power to maintain a status quo of authoritarian political order based on the rule of law. While this works in states with Buddhist population like Thailand and other developing countries in east Asia, regulation breeds corruption in countries like the Philippines where moral incentives fail to curb the natural urge of greed that tempts people, even government officials, to circumvent the laws to create opportunities to convert public goods into private gain.

Deregulation, on the other hand, is premised on the idea that greed is good. In contrast, it merely requires a weak minimal state that allows the market to take advantage of greed by letting the greedy compete among themselves. In the process, competition lowers the cost of commodities and services, improves their quality and increases efficiency. The role of the state is reduced into a night watchman who intervenes only to guarantee that the natural urges of greed produces the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people by dismantling monopolies and ensuring fair competition.

Greed is the selfish desire for or pursuit of money, wealth, power, food, or other possessions, especially when this denies the same goods to others. It is generally considered a vice, and is one of the seven deadly sins in Catholicism.

Greed as far as I know is like a flame. The more you feed it with wood, the larger fire. Feed them once with the power, regret the consequences they will offer. The flame would just grow larger and larger seeking for more wealth and power until it is un undestructible fire.

But what kills this flame? Fire kills fire. A bigger boss, a bigger official. There is no such thing as contentment. For if there is, government officials needlessly be corrupted. They wouldn’t argue for power just to be on the pinnacle of the hierarchy.

The fire which burns the brightest produces the smoke which is darkest. Let the thieves be punished. Moderate their greed. She who seats on top has the greatest greed, but he who stands at the bottom moderates it.

Rizal as for who we know he is might have chosen the side of Lozada in the present. He might have suggested reform and he might have given away his novels (or should I say articles?). He might even have joined our rallies in the streets. Yeah he is not the type who goes out at EDSA. But if Rizal had knew that it is his fellow Filipino’s greed taking over, he might even had set up the rally himself. With Rizal’s line of thinking, he could have been the president of the country, or he might have planned it better— he could just haved ousted the evil who seats in the present:)

It is known that greed is the act of wanting or grabbing more than one’s need or more than one’s share. Similarly in politics, Greed is perhaps inevitable for us. As for the Philippines which is one of the most consistent corrupt in the world, Greed is the root of such. Since most human beings are greedy and it is tempting to moderate one’s greed, we can practically decide whether to regulate or deregulate our greed. Regulating our greed which makes us believe that greed is evil will definitely requires us an interventionist state to punish the greedy. In some cases, it works. unfortunately in some, it doesn’t. Deregulation of greed on the other hand sticks to the idea that greed is good. it provokes competitions among the greedy and somehow, it lowers the cost of some services and improves quality and efficiency. consequently, the innocents also benefit from these.

On Rizal’s part, I honestly don’t know what would he choose between the two. But the fact that he is a pacifist and a humanist makes me think that he would rather choose the regulation of greed. After all, greed is a sin. And a sin, whether or not mortal or deadly, shall not be committed by anyone at any cost.

Greed is not actually evil. It depends on the way you look at it. It may be right or wrong, good or evil but greed all depends to where you place it. Say for example greed as to means of regulation in the gov’t it could be. good but totally wrong because if its a law gov’t officials can take advantage over it and to means of serving the people and returning the needs of their fellow citizens tehy might have the temptation to corrupt the money and turn it against you. Greed on the other hand as a deregulation greed maybe totally wrong but good. Why is it? Because the greedy can compete against themselves and it maybe easier for us to live because of the necessities that we need now a days can compete against themselves with their prices. Which gives us bigger chances to afford our necessities. As to this Rizal would look at this as a sublime to our lives. He would haved weighed the situation and balanced everything out. Money back then wasn’t a problem for them. They used to fight for freedom. Now in the present we fight for wealth which is wrong because what more will happen in the future. We should look at Rizal as an inspiration to our country on how he handled things and made a difference.

GREED. What is greed? According to the dictionary greed is an excessive desire for wealth. So greed can be good or bad, right or wrong. It is based on how you put the word “gree” on the picture. If you look at greed in a wrong/bad way it would be more like Self-conceit may lead to self-destruction. So you can be a failure if you’re greedy. a quote from Walter Lippman “It is the very essence of despotism that it can never afford to fail. This is what distinguishes it most vitally from democracy. In a despotism there is no organized opposition which can take over the power when the Administration in office has failed. All the eggs are in one basket. Everything is staked on one coterie of men. When the going is good, they move more quickly and efficiently than democracies, where the opposition has to be persuaded and conciliated. But when they lose, there are no reserves. There are no substitutes on the bench ready to go out on the field and carry the ball. That is why democracies with the habit of party government have outlived all other forms of government in the modern world. They have, as it were, at least two governments always at hand, and when one fails they have the other. They have diversified the risks of mortality, corruption, and stupidity which pervade all human affairs. They have remembered that the most beautifully impressive machine cannot run for very long unless there is available a complete supply of spare parts.” with what he said greed is not to last as long as it is. During the time of Jose Rizal was greed a big issue? No, it wasn’t. It was more on fighting for freedom. MONEY DOESN’T MAKE THE WORLD GO ROUND. We all should know that. Greed may be good or evil. Just look at the way your putting it and how you use “greed”.

Greed is a undying hunger for things you want that actually you are jealous of or things that we do not actually need. It is a disease that we cannot easily overcome. A simple for this is our corrupted government. Even though they publicly announce or televised there efforts to diminish graph and corruption. What are the results? Nothing, just simply accusations and no persons bring in to justice. We can also say that things like this happen because of money, nothing but pure greed for money and power.

Ever wonder why they do not pass on the cheaper medicines bill? For its because people in power will have less money in there pockets for the reason that if multinational corporations will have a great loss in there profit and it also goes for the certain peoples in power.

Greediness is one of the worst traits any person can have. Usually, greedy people are selfish! They prioritize in getting anything that appeals to them, uncaring who they run over in the process. They want to gain everything the world has to offer and will not settle for less!!!! They can’t get enough of anything! But in the end they tend to bite off more than they could chew thus resulting in their downfall! Such is our government today, because of their greed, they will steal huge amounts of money or cheat in order to gain power! , expecting no one to find out! But when they are caught red handed, they beg for the people’s apologies and expect to be forgiven! Then they do it again! Instead of the money being used for building houses or giving food to the poor, the money they take instead, builds these government officials a new house in the hills, or a private jet or a weekend vacation to wherever!! I believe that greed is the greatest downfall of our country, people often take what is not theirs just to pursue their selfish desires! Many people suffer because of the greedy PIGS our government is filled with! In my opinion, if Rizal were alive today, he would say that his sacrifice was for nothing, because the leaders of our country today are worse that the spanish, stealing from the people living their life in luxury while the citizens suffer! If we do not change our ways, our country will continue deteriorating until there is nothing left! We must learn to control our greed and live our life honestly.

Greed is a selfish desire.Greed denotes desire to acquire wealth or possessions beyond the needs of the individual.Essential to the concept of greed is the awareness that the needs of others are denied. Compared to our present situation, if we regulate greed, it would only make our government corrupt because given the power to the governing
officials, they corrupt our society, they compete among themselves for the greed that they could acquire or get from being into position. As a student, i would rather choose to deregulate greed at the same time change the leaders. By allowing the market to compete with the other, they would take advantage of greed and make all possibilities to fight for greed that would increase our economy.

If i were Rizal, i would choose to deregulate greed. The idea is to let them compete for themselves and do not interfere for them to concentrate on the growth and development of our countries economy. Compared to Rizal’s time, Filipinoes deregulated greed, they allowed the spaniards to handle our economic growth. It was successful though we were prisoners. If we could be like the spaniards before wherein
we would be the marketers or handlers of our economy, we might have the chance of rise up and prosper.